Web-based Implementation for the Science of Enhancing Resilience Study

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Burnout, Professional; Resilience, Psychological
• Interventions: Behavioral: Three Good Things; Behavioral: Gratitude; Behavioral: Random Acts of Kindess; Behavioral: Awe; Behavioral: 1 Good Chat

• Registration Number: NCT02603133
• Lead Sponsor: Stanford University

Brief Summary

Resilience means a healthcare provider's ability to cope, recover, and learn from stressful events, as well as their access to resources that promote health and well-being. Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) health professionals' need to have particularly good resilience, because their work is extremely stressful and their patients, fragile preterm infants, require their undivided attention. The investigators propose a feasible and engaging intervention to enhance resilience among NICU health professionals promoting their ability to provide safe care.

Detailed Description

Optimizing provider well-being is critical to the delivery of safe and high quality care to the most vulnerable of patients: very preterm babies.

Major innovative objectives of this proposal include testing the Web-based Implementation for the Science of Enhancing Resilience (WISER) program's effectiveness in enhancing resilience among Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) health workers, evaluating its effect on unit safety culture, and examining its effect on clinical outcomes in preterm infants. The WISER program is an established but low-intensity yet engaging intervention, which integrates education and behavior modification to boost provider well-being and resilience in order to create an organizational environment which prevents patient harm.

Care for the more than 50,000 very low birth weight (VLBW; \< 1500 gm) infants born annually in the United States is challenging and expensive. Quality of care and outcomes vary widely. Increasing technical demands and patient acuity have pushed burnout among health workers to the breaking point. The few tested interventions that improve caregiver resilience lack feasibility for widespread adoption. This study is designed to achieve the following aims:

1. Test the effectiveness of WISER in improving NICU health professional resilience;

2. Test the effectiveness of WISER in improving patient safety and organizational outcomes;

3. Test the sustainability of WISER; and

4. Describe the barriers and facilitators of the WISER program.

The investigators will test the efficacy of the WISER Program in the NICU setting using a stepped-wedge mixed-methods randomized controlled trial (swRCT) at six tertiary care NICUs. The results of this trial will also provide insights into the causal relations between health worker resilience, the organizational environment, and clinical outcomes among infants born VLBW.

Two blocks with 3 NICUs each will be randomly assigned to one of two intervention cohorts. The WISER NICUs program consists of six 10-minute videos delivered over the course of a six-month period. Following the end of the initial intervention, each NICU will receive individualized feedback/refresher webinar at 12 months, and a final follow-up at 24 months. The investigators will use measures of perception (surveys of health professional's perceptions) and quantifiable measures (clinical measures) to assess the efficacy of the intervention in different domains (resilience, organizational environment, and health). Qualitative methods will provide further insights into facilitators and barriers of the efficacy of WISER.

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2015-11-06
• Study First Submitted QC: 2015-11-09
• Study First Posted: 2015-11-11
• Study Start: 2016-07
• Primary Completion: 2018-08
• Study Completion: 2019-07
• Status Verified: 2023-02
• Last Update Submitted: 2023-02-08
• Last Update Posted: 2023-02-10

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 2650

Inclusion Criteria

1. Location: newborn center, i.e. the NICU or a step down unit

2. Provider:

   1. Primary work place is the Newborn Center
   2. Full time equivalent of >=40%
   3. Date of hire more than 4 weeks prior to start of the intervention

3. Provider groups:

   1. Attendings that identify your newborn center as their primary site of work (not physicians from satellite NICUs)
   2. NICU fellows
   3. Nurse practitioners
   4. Physician Assistants
   5. Nurses, including nurse leadership (managers, educators)
   6. Nurse Assistant
   7. Respiratory care providers
   8. Transport specialists if primarily neonatal transport team
   9. Newborn Center Social workers
   10. Newborn Center Clerks
   11. Newborn Center Pharmacists
   12. Newborn Center Physical, Occupational, Speech, and Developmental Therapists
   13. Newborn Center Nutritionists
   14. Newborn Center Lactation Consultants

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Exclusion Criteria

1. Location: Labor and delivery or the newborn nursery
2. Provider: Work is delivered mostly outside the newborn center (this may affect providers who delivery services across the hospital such as residents, surgeons, anesthesia, consultants, nutritionists, PT/OT (these are included if they are mostly dedicated to the newborn center)
3. Float personnel
4. Does not speak english
5. Cannot operate computer or smart phone

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Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: SEQUENTIAL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Cohort 1	Random Acts of Kindess	The intervention will begin for all NICUs, with baseline surveys as necessary pre-work. For those unable to attend, a link to the baseline survey will be emailed with site champion instructions to complete in groups at staff meetings and during shift change. Two weeks later, three randomly (random number generator) assigned NICUs (block 1) included in the first block webinar will then receive Module 1 of the intervention with Modules 2-6 being rolled out monthly. The second block of three NICUs starts approximately six-month later.
Cohort 1	Gratitude	The intervention will begin for all NICUs, with baseline surveys as necessary pre-work. For those unable to attend, a link to the baseline survey will be emailed with site champion instructions to complete in groups at staff meetings and during shift change. Two weeks later, three randomly (random number generator) assigned NICUs (block 1) included in the first block webinar will then receive Module 1 of the intervention with Modules 2-6 being rolled out monthly. The second block of three NICUs starts approximately six-month later.
Cohort 2	Awe	This second block of 3 NICUs will start approximately six-months after roll-out of group 1. At time point 0 this NICUs in this group will receive a lecture on safety culture, unrelated to the burnout intervention.
Cohort 1	Three Good Things	The intervention will begin for all NICUs, with baseline surveys as necessary pre-work. For those unable to attend, a link to the baseline survey will be emailed with site champion instructions to complete in groups at staff meetings and during shift change. Two weeks later, three randomly (random number generator) assigned NICUs (block 1) included in the first block webinar will then receive Module 1 of the intervention with Modules 2-6 being rolled out monthly. The second block of three NICUs starts approximately six-month later.
Cohort 1	Awe	The intervention will begin for all NICUs, with baseline surveys as necessary pre-work. For those unable to attend, a link to the baseline survey will be emailed with site champion instructions to complete in groups at staff meetings and during shift change. Two weeks later, three randomly (random number generator) assigned NICUs (block 1) included in the first block webinar will then receive Module 1 of the intervention with Modules 2-6 being rolled out monthly. The second block of three NICUs starts approximately six-month later.
Cohort 1	1 Good Chat	The intervention will begin for all NICUs, with baseline surveys as necessary pre-work. For those unable to attend, a link to the baseline survey will be emailed with site champion instructions to complete in groups at staff meetings and during shift change. Two weeks later, three randomly (random number generator) assigned NICUs (block 1) included in the first block webinar will then receive Module 1 of the intervention with Modules 2-6 being rolled out monthly. The second block of three NICUs starts approximately six-month later.
Cohort 2	Random Acts of Kindess	This second block of 3 NICUs will start approximately six-months after roll-out of group 1. At time point 0 this NICUs in this group will receive a lecture on safety culture, unrelated to the burnout intervention.
Cohort 3 (July cohort) WISER 2.0	Three Good Things	Individually randomized to one of two cohorts. Cohort 1 to start will serve as the waitlist control 1 before starting their version of the intervention. Each cohort will experience modified versions of WISER, which only differ by the spacing of intervention. Participants will receive 10-day sequential or 10-day non-sequential rollout of the resilience tools. Seq will receive the tools on ten consecutive days. NSeq will receive messages daily noThursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Days 1 through 3 will be offered 3GT. Day 4 will continue with 3GT but add a single day activity for Gratitude. Day 5 adds a single activity for Awe. Day 6 adds a single day activity for RAK. Days 7 -10 the participant is offered the choice of Gratitude, Awe or RAK to accompany their daily 3GT. At 1 month follow-up time point, participants will receive 8 days of the 1 Good Chat tool, as a booster. At 6 month follow-up, participants will receive a gratitude exercise.
Cohort 2	Three Good Things	This second block of 3 NICUs will start approximately six-months after roll-out of group 1. At time point 0 this NICUs in this group will receive a lecture on safety culture, unrelated to the burnout intervention.
Cohort 3 (July cohort) WISER 2.0	1 Good Chat	Individually randomized to one of two cohorts. Cohort 1 to start will serve as the waitlist control 1 before starting their version of the intervention. Each cohort will experience modified versions of WISER, which only differ by the spacing of intervention. Participants will receive 10-day sequential or 10-day non-sequential rollout of the resilience tools. Seq will receive the tools on ten consecutive days. NSeq will receive messages daily noThursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Days 1 through 3 will be offered 3GT. Day 4 will continue with 3GT but add a single day activity for Gratitude. Day 5 adds a single activity for Awe. Day 6 adds a single day activity for RAK. Days 7 -10 the participant is offered the choice of Gratitude, Awe or RAK to accompany their daily 3GT. At 1 month follow-up time point, participants will receive 8 days of the 1 Good Chat tool, as a booster. At 6 month follow-up, participants will receive a gratitude exercise.
Cohort 2	Gratitude	This second block of 3 NICUs will start approximately six-months after roll-out of group 1. At time point 0 this NICUs in this group will receive a lecture on safety culture, unrelated to the burnout intervention.
Cohort 3 (July cohort) WISER 2.0	Gratitude	Individually randomized to one of two cohorts. Cohort 1 to start will serve as the waitlist control 1 before starting their version of the intervention. Each cohort will experience modified versions of WISER, which only differ by the spacing of intervention. Participants will receive 10-day sequential or 10-day non-sequential rollout of the resilience tools. Seq will receive the tools on ten consecutive days. NSeq will receive messages daily noThursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Days 1 through 3 will be offered 3GT. Day 4 will continue with 3GT but add a single day activity for Gratitude. Day 5 adds a single activity for Awe. Day 6 adds a single day activity for RAK. Days 7 -10 the participant is offered the choice of Gratitude, Awe or RAK to accompany their daily 3GT. At 1 month follow-up time point, participants will receive 8 days of the 1 Good Chat tool, as a booster. At 6 month follow-up, participants will receive a gratitude exercise.
Cohort 2	1 Good Chat	This second block of 3 NICUs will start approximately six-months after roll-out of group 1. At time point 0 this NICUs in this group will receive a lecture on safety culture, unrelated to the burnout intervention.
Cohort 3 (July cohort) WISER 2.0	Random Acts of Kindess	Individually randomized to one of two cohorts. Cohort 1 to start will serve as the waitlist control 1 before starting their version of the intervention. Each cohort will experience modified versions of WISER, which only differ by the spacing of intervention. Participants will receive 10-day sequential or 10-day non-sequential rollout of the resilience tools. Seq will receive the tools on ten consecutive days. NSeq will receive messages daily noThursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Days 1 through 3 will be offered 3GT. Day 4 will continue with 3GT but add a single day activity for Gratitude. Day 5 adds a single activity for Awe. Day 6 adds a single day activity for RAK. Days 7 -10 the participant is offered the choice of Gratitude, Awe or RAK to accompany their daily 3GT. At 1 month follow-up time point, participants will receive 8 days of the 1 Good Chat tool, as a booster. At 6 month follow-up, participants will receive a gratitude exercise.
Cohort 3 (July cohort) WISER 2.0	Awe	Individually randomized to one of two cohorts. Cohort 1 to start will serve as the waitlist control 1 before starting their version of the intervention. Each cohort will experience modified versions of WISER, which only differ by the spacing of intervention. Participants will receive 10-day sequential or 10-day non-sequential rollout of the resilience tools. Seq will receive the tools on ten consecutive days. NSeq will receive messages daily noThursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Days 1 through 3 will be offered 3GT. Day 4 will continue with 3GT but add a single day activity for Gratitude. Day 5 adds a single activity for Awe. Day 6 adds a single day activity for RAK. Days 7 -10 the participant is offered the choice of Gratitude, Awe or RAK to accompany their daily 3GT. At 1 month follow-up time point, participants will receive 8 days of the 1 Good Chat tool, as a booster. At 6 month follow-up, participants will receive a gratitude exercise.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
NICU health professional resilience	10 days, 1 month, 6 months, 12 months	Burnout (emotional exhaustion) is the primary resilience outcome. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) has been the gold standard tool in the field of burnout research. In our investigations, the Emotional Exhaustion subscale, in particular, is consistently associated with variables such as staff turnover, disruptive behavior, productivity, delays, and teamwork. When used as a "percent agree" metric, we have shown it to be a very effective indicator of emotional exhaustion at the group level for a clinical area or work setting. We will use a shortened 4-item version of this subscale from the Maslach Burnout Inventory, which we validated in the NICU setting. The response scale ranges from 1 (disagree strongly) to 5 (agree strongly). Resilience will be calculated as the percentage of NICU providers who disagree slightly or strongly with the 4 items assessing features of emotional exhaustion.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Depressive symptoms	10 days, 1 month, 6 months, 12 months	The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale-10-item version (CES-D10), a psychometrically sound tool for screening respondents for clinical depression, consists of ten items. All items are prefaced with, "during the past week, how often did this occur," include items such as "I could not 'get going'" and "my sleep was restless," and are answered on a four-point scale (0 = rarely or none; 3 = all of the time). Each participant's responses are summed together to achieve a 0- to 30-point scale. A score of 10 or higher is considered a positive screen. We have used the CES-D10 in several WISER and three good things studies without any problems under the existing IRB. The CES-D10 is not a suicide screening tool, it is explicitly used to screen for depression without a suicide item.
Work-Life Balance	10 days, 1 month, 6 months, 12 months	Work-Life Balance (WLB). WLB items were adopted from the College Activities and Behavior Questionnaire. These items that can be interpreted at face-value. All items are prefaced with, "during the past week, how often did this occur" and include items such as "argued with a co-professional" and "arrived home late from work"; they are answered on a four-point scale (0 = rarely or none; 3 = all of the time). Each of these items individually is face-valid and interpretable, but together they make for robust debriefings and discussions linking QI to work-life balance. They are internally consistent, with a Cronbach's alpha of α = 0.82 in our large resilience database.
Happiness	10 days, 1 month, 6 months, 12 months	Rather than to solely focus on negative outcomes, we will also measure happiness via the well-validated Subjective Happiness Scale. This 4-item measure of global subjective happiness was developed and validated 15 years ago using 14 studies with a total of 2732 participants, and has high internal consistency, test-retest, self-peer correlations, as well as excellent convergent and discriminant validity. The strong psychometrics and brevity of this scale have made it very popular in positive psychology interventions that require more precision in the assessment of subjective happiness.

Trial Locations

Locations (9)

Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford; 🇺🇸 Palo Alto, California, United States

Stanford University Medical Center; 🇺🇸 Stanford, California, United States

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Children's Hospital; 🇺🇸 Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States

University of New Mexico; 🇺🇸 Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States

Duke University Health System; 🇺🇸 Durham, North Carolina, United States

Vanderbilt University; 🇺🇸 Nashville, Tennessee, United States

Beth Israel Deconness Medical Center; 🇺🇸 Boston, Massachusetts, United States

University of Texas, Houston; 🇺🇸 Houston, Texas, United States

Baylor College of Medicine; 🇺🇸 Houston, Texas, United States